The Property and Evidence Tracking System (PETS) is the NYPD's huge database where it stores ownership information on the millions in New Yorkers' property it takes charge of every year (including about $68m in cash and counting), through evidence collection and asset forfeiture. Read the rest

That revamped IT film is bringing clowns, downright terrifying ones, right back into the pop culture spotlight.

One donut shop in Texas is leveraging the trend by offering a scary clown delivery service. On Monday and Tuesday, September 25 and 26, you can have Hurts Donut (great name!) in the Dallas suburb of Frisco do the dirty deed for you. And by "dirty deed," I mean "have an evil clown deliver your friends donuts."

In an interview with Dallas area site GuideLive, Hurts Donut co-owner Kas Clegg denies the service was directly inspired by IT clown Pennywise, "We always try to keep up with the trends, and clowns are trending right now... We just love scary clowns."

Have future enemies in the Frisco area? Call 469-214-8001 to schedule delivery. The clown delivery fee is $5 in addition to the regular delivery fee of $5. So, $10 plus whatever the donuts cost.

The donut shop notes on Facebook, "If we have enough interest in surrounding communities, let us know in the comments below, we may pick a day for out of town clown deliveries as well!"

Sarah Jeong's long, terrifyingly thorough analysis of the data-formats in the Star Wars universe is both hilarious and insightful, and illustrates the difference between the burgeoning technological realism of shows like Mr Robot and the long tradition of science fiction media to treat computers as plot devices, rather than things that audiences are familiar with. Read the rest

At this week's O'Reilly Velocity conference in Santa Clara, Artur Bergman, founder and CTO, told the story of how he got involved in starting a denial-of-service-resistant CDN -- a personal story about helping his old company cope with a titanic DDoS attack that brought it and its upstream provider to their knees. Read the rest

Last week, the Air Force announced that it had lost 12 years' worth of records of whistleblower reports, freedom of information requests, and corruption investigations because of unrecoverable database corruption that not even its contractor, Lockheed-Martin, could unsnarl. Read the rest

If your company hasn't "upgraded" your computer to Windows 10 -- a tendril of what Shoshana Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism masquerading as a "free OS" -- you may start receiving messages from Microsoft telling you that your IT department is holding you back: "Your system administrator has blocked upgrades on this PC. Check with your system administrator about upgrading this PC to Windows 10."Read the rest

Six years ago, I wrote a column comparing IT managers' prohibitions on using your own devices and applications to abstinence-only sex ed: a high-handed approach that leaves its audience ignorant and resentful, and dedicated to undermining you behind your back. Read the rest

Audrey writes, "The Recompiler is a new feminist hacker magazine dedicated to learning about technology in a fun and inclusive way. The first issue of the magazine is now online, with articles about glitchy art, 80s tech, SSL bugs, and the flaws in DNS." Read the rest